> ristian  Freedom 


An  Address  Delivered  in  the  Old 
South  Church,  Boston,  Massachusetts,  at 
the  Morning  Service,  February  4,  1917, 
by  the  Rev.  George  A.  Gordon,  D.D. 


Printed  for  the  Standing  Committee 
of  the  Old  South  Society  by  the 
Plimpton  Press,  Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


COPYRIGHT,  1917 
BY  THE  OLD  SOUTH  SOCIETY 


Christian  Freedom 


For  freedom  did  Christ  set  us  free: 
stand  fast  therefore,  and  be  not  en- 
tangled again  in  a yoke  of  bondage. 

— GALATIANS  V.  1. 

FREEDOM  and  slavery  are  in  uttermost 
contrast  in  the  lives  of  human  beings. 
The  Greeks,  whose  tongue  Paul  wrote 
and  spoke  with  power,  divided  their  race  into 
two  classes:  the  class  of  the  slave  and  the  class 
of  the  freeman.  Slavery  they  regarded  as  the 
lowest  degradation;  freedom  as  the  highest 
exaltation  alike  of  the  outward  life  and  the  in- 
ward life.  Such  has  been  the  feeling  of  gill  the 
greater  peoples  through  the  whole  of  human 
history.  Slavery  has  meant  physical,  intellec- 
tual, and  spiritual  misery,  an  afflicted  existence, 
an  existence  robbed  of  worth  and  joy;  freedom 
has  meant  physical,  intellectual,  and  spiritual 
worth,  power,  gladness,  and  hope.  Here  all 
Americans,  of  whatever  origin,  whether  native 
or  adopted,  stand. 

Americans  were  born  into  freedom;  they  in- 
herited a world  of  freedom!  Their  country  is 
the  monumental  symbol  of  freedom,  first  for 

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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 


the  white  man,  then  fer  the  black  man  and  the 
red  man,  and  finally  for  all  men  who  come  here 
and  who  are  worthy  to  enter  our  fellowship  and 
our  service  of  freedom,  who  are  ready  to  uphold 
the  institutions  and  the  ideals  of  the  American 
Republic.  The  poet  Burns,  riding  over  the  bat- 
tlefield of  Bannockburn,  and  composing  the  ode 
which  Carlyle  said  should  be  sung  with  the 
throat  of  the  whirlwind,  sings  not  only  for  all 
the  true  sons  of  his  native  country,  in  all  their 
generations,  but  also  for  all  true  Americans 
everywhere : 

“ Wha  will  be  a traitor  knave? 

Wha  can  fill  a coward’s  grave? 

Wha  sae  base  as  be  a slave?  — 

Let  him  turn,  and  flee  /” 

The  sovereign  gift  of  Jesus  to  the  world  was 
freedom, — freedom  for  the  spirit  that  should 
eventually  cover  the  earth  with  its  own  forms 
and  institutions.  And  Paul,  the  greatest  dis- 
ciple of  Jesus  here,  as  elsewhere,  seized  his 
Master’s  religion  at  the  heart,  and  in  the  text, 
translated  accurately  in  Standard  Bible,  set 
before  the  world  this  double  gift  of  Christian 
freedom:  “For  freedom  did  Christ  set  us  free.” 
Here  are  the  two  great  aspects  of  freedom:  the 
interior  freedom  of  the  spirit  and  the  gradual, 
progressive  freedom  both  in  religion  and  in 
political  life.  These  are  the  two  aspects  of 
Christian  freedom  that  I am  to  discuss  with 
you  this  morning. 


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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 


I.  Freedom  of  the  Mind 

CHRISTIAN  freedom  begins  in  the  mind;  it 
is  interior,  it  is  spiritual.  It  is  freedom  from 
the  domination  of  wrong  ideas,  false  notions, 
base  superstitions,  evil  purposes,  brutal  pas- 
sions; it  is  emancipation  from  a world  in  the 
mind  that  is  false,  wrong,  wretched.  Accord- 
ing to  Christianity  there  can  be  no  freedom  that 
does  not  begin  in  the  mind;  and  this  interior 
freedom  takes  two  great  directions:  it  concerns 
the  being  and  the  character  of  God,  his  disposi- 
tion toward  mankind,  his  government  of  the 
world.  Think  of  the  notions,  false,  base,  horri- 
ble, that  have  for  ages  darkened  the  face  of  the 
Most  High  and  made  men  cringe  in  his  presence 
and  try  to  bribe  him  into  doing  right,  to  propi- 
tiate him  into  good-will  toward  his  own  children ! 
Christianity  is,  first  of  all,  an  emancipation 
from  this  vast  and  wretched  world  of  false  and 
degrading  notions  that  have  blotted  out  the  be- 
nignity of  the  Supreme  Being  from  the  sphere 
of  human  vision. 

This  emancipation  concerns  not  God  only 
but  also  man.  An  equal  number  of  false,  mis- 
taken, debasing  notions  have  grown  up  in  regard 
to  human  life;  this  tyranny  of  false  and  debas- 
ing ideas  and  views  holds  men  in  wrong-doing, 
drives  them  into  courses  of  shame,  and  will  not 
let  them  escape.  Christianity  makes  men  free 
in  their  ideas  about  themselves,  their  kind, 
their  constitution,  the  good  for  which  they 

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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 


were  made,  and  enables  them  to  see  what  is 
essential  good.  Inward  freedom, — that  is  the 
first  word  in  Christianity,  freedom  of  the  mind. 
Jesus  spoke  no  greater  words  in  all  his  minis- 
try than  these:  “Ye  shall  know  the  truth  and 
the  truth  shall  make  you  free.”  True  ideas  on 
any  subject,  sincerely  entertained,  make  a true 
mind;  a true  and  a truth-loving  mind  is  the 
free  mind,  and  it  alone  is  free. 

Jesus  was  persecuted  by  the  State  and  finally 
he  was  put  to  death  by  the  State;  but  he  founded 
a kingdom  of  truth  in  freedom  and  a kingdom 
of  freedom  in  truth.  He  had  perfect  confidence 
in  the  truth  in  the  hands  of  freedom,  and  of 
freedom  as  the  child  of  truth.  As  I have  said, 
his  greatest  apostle,  free-born,  a citizen  of  the 
Roman  Empire  as  he  was,  perhaps  because  he 
was  free-born,  seized  upon  the  great  central 
gift  and  promise  of  his  Master  Jo  mankind  of 
immediate  interior  freedom  and  of  ultimate 
external  freedom.  That  double  freedom  was 
Paul’s  gospel  to  the  Empire.  There  is  an  epic 
in  the  life  of  this  monumental  man  who  had  so 
long  and  in  vain  sought  freedom  from  a world 
of  evil  superstitions  and  false  notions  about 
God  and  about  himself.  The  great  emancipa- 
tion came  to  him  when  he  became  a disciple  of 
Jesus;  then  he  stepped  forth  as  a man  made 
free  within  and  made  for  freedom  in  a free  world. 

In  this  apostolic  succession  we  must  place 
the  Phrygian  slave,  Epictetus,  who  loved  free- 
dom with  a mighty  love  and  who  asked  this 

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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 


great  question:  “Who  made  you  a slave,  Nero 
or  thyself?”  Freedom  began  with  him  in  the 
mind,  in  the  soul,  and  this  is  the  story  behind 
the  achievement  of  real  freedom  everywhere. 

The  Pilgrims,  our  prophets  of  freedom,  began 
here.  Freedom  was  first  of  all  a mental  passion 
with  them,  cherished  in  old  England,  cherished 
in  Holland,  cherished  in  the  wilderness  of  New 
England;  more  and  more  they  sought  to  be 
free  within.  We  think  of  the  mistakes,  the 
blunders,  the  inconsistencies  of  the  Pilgrims 
and  the  Puritans;  we  dwell  on  these  altogether 
unmagnanimously  and  too  much.  Here  is  their 
central  bequest  which  made  them  great  and 
which  makes  them  greater  as  the  generations 
run.  They  began  with  freedom  in  their  souls; 
that  was  their  passion;  more  and  more  it  came 
to  them;  more  and  more  it  is  coming  to  the 
world,  and  the  Pilgrims  especially  are  among 
the  prophets  of  this  greatest  thing  in  human 
history,  — the  free  mind  in  the  truth,  the  mind 
made  free  by  the  truth. 


URN  now  to  the  other  aspect  of  Chris- 


tian freedom.  While  Christian  freedom 
begins  in  the  mind  it  does  not  end  there.  It  is 
bound  to  flow  outward  in  its  true  ideas,  and 
more  and  more  it  seeks  forms  and  institutions 
accordant  with  its  own  character.  In  the  life 
of  each  tree  there  resides  a plan,  and  that  plan 


II.  Outward  Freedom 


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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 


conforms  to  itself  the  tree  in  which  the  life  is 
to  dwell;  oak,  ash,  pine,  maple,  elm,  each  be- 
comes the  form,  lifted  into  existence,  grown 
into  existence  by  the  impulse  of  the  interior 
building  life.  In  the  same  way  the  free  mind 
seeks  to  utter  itself  in  forms  and  in  institutions 
accordant  with  its  own  character.  Here  we 
touch  the  deepest  struggle  in  all  human  his- 
tory, — the  conflict  between  the  true  mind, 
the  mind  made  true  by  true  ideas,  seeking  to 
express  itself  in  institutions  correspondent  with 
itself,  and  the  darkened  mind,  the  mind  in 
bondage,  calling  upon  compulsion  and  force  to 
maintain  it  in  the  world.  There  is  the  central 
conflict  in  the  history  of  the  world:  the  mind 
made  free  by  true  ideas,  seeking  to  express 
itself  in  institutions  and  forms  accordant  with 
its  own  character,  and  the  mind  under  the 
domination  of  false  ideas,  in  pari  or  in  whole, 
employing  force  to  maintain  itself  supreme 
against  freedom  and  against  truth;  there,  I 
repeat,  is  the  central  conflict  and  the  glory  of 
human  history. 

More  and  more  for  the  last  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  Providence  has  been  throwing  into 
the  hands  of  the  people,  among  growing  democ- 
racies, the  cause  of  freedom  and  the  cause  of 
truth  against  autocracy,  against  absolutism, 
against  those  whose  false  notions  of  their  maj- 
esty are  supported  by  compulsion.  The  first 
great  movement  was  the  American  Revolution. 
This  was  seconded  by  the  lurid  splendor  and 

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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 

magnificence  of  the  French  Revolution;  there 
modern  democracy  was  born;  there  the  people 
began  to  live  in  true  ideas  and  in  freedom; 
there  and  then  they  began  to  build  the  free 
commonwealth. 

I beg  you  to  note  this  great  development  of 
democracy  employed,  as  it  would  seem,  and  as 
I believe,  by  Providence  to  create  freedom  under 
true  ideas  and  with  freedom  to  create  institu- 
tions for  the  benefit  — not  of  certain  classes  but 
of  all  mankind.  Modern  France  is  a democracy; 
modern  Britain  is  a democracy;  the  United 
States  of  America  is  a democracy!  We  speak 
of  the  blunders  of  democracies,  and  it  is  well 
that  we  do;  we  call  attention  to  their  mistakes, 
follies,  extravagancies,  and  that  is  well.  But 
fasten  your  eye  upon  the  centred  thing,  — men 
under  the  domination,  on  the  whole,  of  true 
conceptions  and  thereby  made  freemen;  men 
seeking  to  express  this  truth  emd  this  freedom 
in  institutions  created  for  the  good  of  the  whole 
body  politic. 

1.  Religious  Freedom.  Here  the  State  touches 
two  great  interests  of  the  individual  man,  his  re- 
ligious life  and  his  political  life.  We  in  America 
declare  the  State  shall  not  say  what  we  shall 
believe  or  what  we  shall  worship,  or  how  we 
shall  worship  what  we  deem  all-worthy.  The 
State  must  leave  us  to  decide  what  we  regard 
as  true,  what  we  regard  as  worthy  of  worship; 
it  must  leave  us  free  to  adopt  what  we  regard 
as  the  best  method  of  worship.  And  here  again 

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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 


we  are  close  to  the  Pilgrims  as  prophets  of 
freedom;  this  is  our  inheritance  from  them,  this 
distinction  between  State  and  Church.  The 
authority  of  the  State  stops  at  the  door  of  the 
sanctuary,  and  a man’s  creed  is  of  his  own 
thinking;  a man’s  worship  is  to  the  being  in 
whom  he  believes,  and  the  mode  of  his  worship 
is  according  to  his  convenience  and  preference. 

No  man  can  estimate  what  this  inheritance 
is  yet  to  do  for  the  world.  We  are  only  begin- 
ning to  see  what  religious  freedom  means. 
When  men  are  free  to  believe  in  what  they 
regard  as  the  truth,  free  to  worship  what  they 
hold  to  be  the  Eternal  Excellence,  free  in  all 
their  methods  of  worship,  that  will  mean  a 
new  world  of  sincerity,  of  insight,  of  character, 
of  power  in  religion. 

2.  Political  Freedom.  The  second  point  at 
which  the  State  touches  freedom  concerns  the 
individual  citizen.  This  country^  was  founded 
to  give  reasonable  and  just  opportunity  to 
individual  citizens,  for  the  expression  of  what- 
ever gifts  the  Almighty  had  implanted  in  them, 
— industrial,  intellectual,  and  spiritual.  The 
American  State  is  the  guardian,  the  authorita- 
tive guardian  of  the  utmost  ordered  opportun- 
ity for  all  men,  that  they  may  work  out  the 
gifts  that  are  in  them.  The  American  State  is 
not  a nurse,  it  is  not  a hospital,  it  is  not  a 
syndicate  of  capitalists,  it  is  not  a union  of 
laborers,  it  is  not  a paternalism  of  any  kind;  it 
is  a majestic  umpire  in  the  free  development  of 

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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 


all  American  talent;  it  is  the  great  guarantor 
of  fair  play  for  all  individuals;  and,  in  the 
third  place,  it  is  the  benevolent  friend  of  the 
defeated  and  the  unfortunate. 

This  is  the  American  conception  of  the  State, 
the  conception  of  the  founders,  and  of  the  second 
founders;  of  those  who  fought  that  this  Re- 
public might  come  into  being  and  of  those  who 
fought  that  it  might  continue  in  being.  I re- 
peat that  the  American  State  is  not  a nurse, 
it  is  not  a hospital,  it  is  not  a syndicate  of 
money-changers,  it  is  not  a union  of  laborers, 
it  is  not  a paternalism  of  any  kind:  it  is  an 
umpire  in  the  free  development  of  manifold 
power,  it  is  a guarantor  of  fair  play  in  the 
realization  of  the  universal  opportunity! 

This  system  is  not  without  defects.  It  has 
this  immortal  merit,  however;  it  has  bred  a 
race  fit  to  found,  fit  to  maintain,  fit  to  defend, 
fit  to  perpetuate  the  institutions  of  free  men! 
To-day  is  a solenm  day  in  the  life  of  this  na- 
tion. We  are  on  the  verge  of  War,  and  our 
population  is  made  up  largely  of  the  kindred  of 
those  who  are  fighting  one  another  in  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe:  Scot,  English,  Irish,  Italian, 
French,  Belgian  on  the  one  side;  and  of  the 
nations  fighting  on  the  other  side,  all  but  one 
are  generously  represented  in  the  Ajnerican 
Republic.  I would  be  the  last  to  speak  a bitter 
word  or  a word  to  hurt  the  sensibilities  of  any 
man  whose  blood  is  derived  from  either  of  the 
Central  Powers.  But  we  have  on  our  hands  a 

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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 


problem,  and  our  question  is,  how  shall  we  face 
it  as  a united  America?  The  answer  is,  we  must 
face  it  as  our  forefathers  faced  the  Revolution. 

3.  The  Lesson  of  the  Founders.  Here  is  the 
great,  impressive  lesson  for  the  composite 
America  of  to-day.  Whom  did  the  Colonists 
fight?  Their  kindred,  their  fathers,  then- 
brothers,  those  who  were  bone  of  their  bone 
and  flesh  of  their  flesh.  It  was  Englishman 
against  Englishman,  Scot  against  Scot,  and 
Irishman  against  Irishman.  It  was  a war 
between  kindred  and  between  kinsmen  who 
twenty  years  before  had  been  profound  and 
happy  friends!  Kinsmen,  with  the  same  lan- 
guage, with  the  same  religion,  with  the  same 
literature,  with  the  same  traditions  of  freedom 
and  power  and  manhood,  went  forth  to  meet 
each  other  in  battle.  There  is  nothing  like  so 
tragic  a situation  in  the  America  of  to-day  as 
we  confront  the  possibilities  of  The  future  as 
there  was  when  the  Tea  Party  took  place  at 
the  hands  of  those  who  gathered  in  the  Old 
South  Meetinghouse;  or  when  Washington 
took  command  of  the  Continental  Army  under 
the  old  tree  in  Cambridge.  What  was  their 
argument,  conclusion,  motive?  It  was  that 
every  tie  must  be  like  tow  in  the  fire  when  it 
comes  to  the  question  of  the  existence  of  free- 
dom among  men  born  for  freedom! 

I commend  this  example  to  my  fellow  adopted 
citizens  of  other  blood  than  my  own,  and  I know 
if  the  case  were  reversed  I should  take  the  lesson 

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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 


to  myself.  What  did  I mean  when  I took  the 
oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  and  foreswore  specially  and  spe- 
cifically all  allegiance  to  the  Queen  of  Great 
Britain?  Preparation  for  any  emergency  and 
readiness  to  count  freedom,  American  freedom, 
first,  last,  and  all  the  time  above  every  other 
interest. 

One  lesson  more  from  the  Revolution.  The 
revolutionists  made  a distinction  clear  and  deep 
between  the  government  of  Great  Britain  and 
the  people,  between  King  George  III  and  his 
lackeys  and  blind  servants  and  tyrants,  and  the 
whole  people.  They  knew  that  Chatham  was 
with  them,  that  the  greatest  political  genius  of 
the  English  race  was  with  them,  — Edmund 
Burke;  they  knewT  or  might  have  known  that 
the  poet  Burns  was  with  them,  who  after  the 
war  wrote  a great  “ Ode  to  Washington,”  who 
after  the  War  sacrificed  all  possibility  of  a pension 
from  the  Government  by  writing  “ A Dream  ” 
to  George  III,  which  I beg  you  to  read.  Let 
our  Teutonic  citizens,  who  are  among  the  most 
substantial  and  the  ablest  and  the  worthiest  of 
the  adopted  sons  of  America,  — let  them  draw 
the  distinction  which  your  fathers  drew  in  the 
day  of  their  distress;  let  them  draw  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  Teutonic  peoples  and  the 
Teutonic  government.  And  remember  that  if 
he  were  free  to  speak,  the  true  Teuton  would 
say  that  no  nation  has  a right  to  limit  the  just 
freedom  of  the  United  States;  subject  it  to 

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CHRISTIAN  FREEDOM 


indignity;  to  murder  its  women  and  children 
on  the  high  seas,  or  to  confine  its  industry  and 
influence  within  its  own  bounds. 

We  are  one  to-day,  one  in  our  belief  in  free 
institutions,  one  in  our  sense  of  obligation  to 
the  American  Republic,  and  all  ties  even  of 
the  most  sacred  character  must  be,  as  I have 
said,  like  tow  in  the  fire  when  it  comes  to  the 
question  whether  America  shall  be  first  or  the 
country  of  our  descent  or  our  birth. 

The  President  of  the  United  States  has  been 
patient,  patient  to  the  utmost  limit,  so  patient 
that  the  world  has  been  in  danger  of  misunder- 
standing him.  Let  us  thank  God  to-day  for 
his  patience,  for  his  clearness,  for  his  solemn 
decision,  and  for  his  hope  that  war  may  yet 
be  averted.  Let  us  be  ready,  with  our  faith, 
our  prayer,  our  manhood,  and  all  our  resources 
to  stand  behind  the  Government  that  guards 
the  heritage  of  the  American  people. 


[14] 


I 


